Kętrzyn (Rastenburg; former Rastembork) is a town in northeastern Poland with 28,351 inhabitants (2004). Situated in the Warmian-Masurian Voivodeship (since 1999), Kętrzyn was previously in Olsztyn Voivodeship (1975-1998). It is the capital of Kętrzyn County.

History

Before 1945, the town was in the German province of East Prussia, and was known in German as Rastenburg and in Polish as Rastembork.

The original inhabitants of the region were the Baltic German tribe of the Aesti, mentioned by Tacitus in his Germania (AD 98). The town of Rastenburg was established in 1329 in the Monastic state of the Teutonic Knights and was granted town rights in 1357. Genetic tests on German families expelled from the region after World War II showed that mixing of German and Polish colonists with Baltic Prussians occurred in the Middle Ages at a higher rate than previously estimated from surnames and church records.

The region was the scene of fighting during both world wars. in 1914 it was the scene of the battle of the Masurian Lakes during the Tannenburg campaign.

Adolf Hitler's wartime military headquarters, the Wolfsschanze (Wolf's Lair), was located in the forest east of Rastenburg. The bunker was the setting for the failed July 20 Plot against Hitler. In 1945 the area suffered devastation from both the retrating Germans and advancing Russians during the Vistula-Oder campaign. The ruins of the Wolfsschanze, blown up by the retreating Germans, are today an important tourist attraction.

Rastenburg was occupied by the Red Army in 1945 near the end of World War II. After the war ended, it was placed under Polish administration according to the decisions made at the Potsdam Conference. Its German residents who had not evacuated were subsequently expelled westward and replaced with Poles. The town was renamed from Rastembork to Kętrzyn after the Masurian activist Wojciech Kętrzyński in 1950.

People

• Karl Bogislaus Reichert, German anatomist of the 19th century.
• Francisec Kabat, at 6 ft 8 in said to be the tallest man in the Prussian Army at the time of the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71. He emigrated to America in 1879, settling in Manistee, Michigan, where he was a sawmill worker and a police officer. His descendants include the American historian James L. Cabot.
• Wilhelm Wien, physicist who received the Nobel Prize in physics in 1911 for his work on black body radiation. He was a cousin of Max Carl Wien, also a physicist.
• Oskar Schmoling, youngest prisoner of war of World War II.

Gallery

Twin towns

• Volodymyr-Volynskyi
• Wesel
• Zlaté Hory

External links

• 
• Municipal webpage
• Kętrzyn